Hello lovelies!

This chapter was supposed to have come a little bit sooner but I graduated this week! Officially a Master of Mathematics!

Thank you so much for the reviews, favourites and follows.

Any criticism is welcome.

September 1971

Hermione's eyes shot open as the cold from the floor began to seep through her jacket. A gasp escaped as she looked up at the figure looming over her. Quickly, she tried to scramble backwards on the marble floor but something had gotten tangled around her legs.

"Fascinating! You're alive! My dear, you'll ruin the floor if you continue your scrambling. I mean you no harm."

The man was tall and pale and definitely not someone Hermione recognised. She reached for her wand, sure she had been holding it, only to find it was no longer with her.

"Don't come any closer!"

Her voice was confident but it didn't sound right to her ears. In fact, not much about this situation felt right at all to Hermione, it all felt very very wrong. She looked around, catching a glimpse of an archway in an otherwise empty chamber. She'd been her before hadn't she? Pushing the rising panic down she turned her attention back onto him.

"I need to check you aren't injured, most people who find themselves in this room come to a very unfortunate ending you see. I'm afraid I can't go into too much detail, top secret and all that."

"Where am I? What happened?" Her voice, she realised, sounded much younger than she remembered. "Am I alive?"

"That is precisely what I am trying to find out myself! This is the death chamber after all, although I don't quite know how much I'm supposed to say about that. Now tell me child, how did you get here?"

He slowly took a step towards her and crouched down to be at her eye level. It had come as a shock when he had been notified of a shift in the chamber. It had an extensive reputation for destroying life but never in it's history had it introduced a new one. This was certainly fascinating to him.

"I think… " she began, unsure if she should be revealing all that she could remember. "I think I fell into the archway." Hermione couldn't believe she would be so clumsy but it did ring a bell. Until she could remember the full event she would stick to that.

He gave a surprised a laugh as he began to cast diagnositic charms upon her tiny frame.

"Well that certainly is a first isn't it! Not the wisest decision, although it seems that you are the first to survive the death chamber. How marvellous, I really must ask how you did it? But I suppose that can wait for me to at least make some tea. Come child, we shall go to my office. I am an Unspeakable here at the department of mysteries and I have many questions."

The strange man stood and offered Hermione a hand up but as she went to take it the sight of her tiny hand made her gasp for the second time. It seemed that she had shrunk without her knowing or remembering. The witch finally noticed why she had felt so strange, she had de-aged.

Her memory was still hazy but surely she would have remembered decreasing in age by half a decade? Hermione Granger was convinced she was 16 but that couldn't be true at this very moment. The wheels in her head were spinning as she tried to make sense of what was happening. Hadn't she been in the middle of something?

She stared at her own hand for a second longer before grasping the Unspeakable's outstretched hand. Perhaps a cup of tea would do her good. She was tired and confused but the wizard in front of her probably had answers to at least some of her questions. That would be a good start to making some sense.

Gingerly, she stood up, being careful to hold onto her oversized clothes, which had tangled themselves around her much smaller frame.

"A cup of tea would be wonderful Unspeakable…. ?"

"Ah, we do not give our names. Top secret work we have here, although you are now part of that top secret work I suppose. Is there a protocol for this I wonder? All things we can figure out in my office I'm sure."

Hermione nodded along to his musings and the pair began to make their way through the department. Looking around as they walked past room after room, her memories of this maze-like place began to surface. She had been in the middle of something! They had been dueling, her friends against the death eaters. She had been trying to save Sirius -

"I don't suppose anybody else has been down here who shouldn't have been?"

"No, it appears to be just you. Should we be expecting anyone else? What did you say your name was again?"

What had happened when she had been dragged into the arch after Sirius? Where had everyone gone? If he knew everything about that chamber then why did he not know about the activities that had occurred just before?

"Hermione. Hermione Granger. I'm afraid I may have lost my friends. We were all here in that room when I… fell into the arch."

He raised his brows at that, but didn't reply. Ushering her into his office, he waved his wand to make space on a spare chair and conjured two cups for the tea. A locking charm on the door and a privacy ward was set up around the room as the unspeakable made his way behind his desk.

"Now, Hermione, I'm sure we can figure out precisely what has happened to you but I must ask - how old are you? You hardly look old enough to be in the department of mysteries to begin with and Granger is not exactly a wizarding name. If you were a muggleborn you wouldn't have even found the ministry!"

There was a stretched silence between them as she weighed her options. She would have to tell him the truth but she needed answers herself. Honest answers.

"I'll tell you the truth if you swear you'll do the same. I know I was here with all of my friends and I know for a fact that we were attacked." He looked sceptical but nodded. Grabbing a quill he started to make notes.

"As an Unspeakable it is my sole job to monitor and research the death chamber. I know everything that happens in that room and I am under an oath to never speak of it. So you have my sworn secrecy, but there are many things we must clear up. Nobody but you has been inside that chamber this evening. When did this attack happen?"

She frowned at this, how long was she inside of that arch for? Then again, if she had been missing then people would have looked for her. Hermione's parents wouldn't stop looking for her if she was missing – even if they are just muggles.

"It was the 18th June, I'm sure of it."

"Well that is unusual, there's been a passing of time! I hope this doesn't mean I'm going to have to give this project over to the time team… They already have their own chamber to contend with."

"About that… all of the time turners were smashed in the attack, weren't they? It was an accident, I swear!"

"What? That definitely didn't happen. The 18th June you say?"

"Precisely. The 18th June 1996." At this, he dropped his quill. A look of wonder spread across his face.

"You mean to tell me that you come from 1996? My dear, today is the 1st September 1971! You appeared just after the stroke of midnight. Tell me – does that date mean anything to you at all? I suppose it would explain the oversized clothes, you must have reverted back to your present age."

She furrowed her brow – did this date mean anything? How could it? She wasn't even going to born for another 8 years… but Sirius was. She had grabbed onto Sirius when he fell into the arch. Did the date mean anything to him? If she knew how old he was then maybe that could give her a clue, or even where he was at this point in time. Was he old enough to go to Hogwarts? Hermione knew Azkaban had aged him further than his years so she couldn't take a guess. By grabbing hold of him, maybe she had followed him to this point in time and had reverted to his current age.

"This might sound strange but is there any way you could tell me how old I am?"

"Surely you know how old you were in the present time? This could be a disaster if there is more than one of you running about the place! Maybe I need to contact your parents." The more the Unspeakable thought about the situation, the more questions he had.

Will he find a second Hermione Granger running around or was she the original one? Had she suddenly transported into this future version? This clearly didn't happen to the girl in front of her the first time around, had her future been changed? If so – could she be sent back? Or would she relive the same days but end up with two sets of memories? The Unspeakable sighed, there was a reason he avoided the time chamber at all costs.

"I'm afraid this is going to be a very long night, Miss Granger. We have much to discuss." He began to rub at his temples, it really was quite late already and all he had was her name. "I've been studying the death chamber for almost a decade and you have come along and ruined all of my theories in the space of an hour!" He chuckled, as if he found the whole situation funny. "From the beginning please, in your original timeline did anything unusual happen to you on this very day?"

There was a pause as Hermione decided whether she should tell him the entire truth. He knew she was from the future, but he thought she was also from this past. Making a quick judgement of the wizard in front of her she stared at him solemnly.

"Well no. You see Mr Unspeakable, there couldn't possibly have been a reason for me to be here. I wasn't born until 1979."

"Ah. Bugger."

After much deliberation, the Unspeakable decided it would be best for all if he didn't hear about the future. After all, that future no longer existed. By the time the sun began to rise, the duo had decided that no one else outside of them would be privy to this information – it was top secret work after all.

Slowly, a plausible story for Hermione's sudden appearance in this decade was conceived. Keeping things as simple as possible was the best way forward and if anyone began to question the validity of the situation they could claim the secrecy of the department. It was the chamber's fault that she had ended up in this time and so she was officially part of his research.

Hermione's past was easy to come up with, especially in this slightly hostile political climate. It would be no surprise if a family had chosen to hide their half-blood daughter away from the tense magical community. The Unspeakable didn't even blink as he then killed off her newly imagined parents, a muggle farther and a magical mother.

"It works perfectly! They were killed in a bit of a scuffle – I'll leave the details to you - and you were automatically transported to the ministry for safe keeping. This is the part where I come in." He looked extremely satisfied with himself. "Do you mind if I check how old you are Hermione? A quick spell will tell me your exact age and you won't even feel a thing." He didn't wait to hear her answer before he pulled his wand out and began to cast. "Corpus tempus!" A slight shimmer rose above Hermione's head and the number 11 glowed.

"I guess I should have been on my way to Hogwarts today if it's the 1st September." He gasped at this.

"Of course! How could I forget! The Hogwarts Express will be leaving in a few hours. Perhaps I could send a letter to Minerva and get her to pull some strings… We went to Hogwarts together you know? I was always very fond of her, no matter how fierce she seems I know she has a heart of gold."

Hermione didn't need him to tell her how wonderful Professor McGonagall was, she had been in her house for the past 5 years, but all of that wouldn't happen now would it? There may never be a little Hermione Granger born on the 19th September who would end up at Hogwarts alongside Harry Potter and Ronald Weasley. She sighed but agreed that it was the best plan they had so far.

In one night, her life had vanished. Now she was Hermione Granger, the half-blood. Hermione Granger, the orphan. Hermione Granger, the girl with the potential to change the future.

More importantly though, she was the girl who needed to cry over the loss of her real family, who needed to sleep and wake up from this weird dream and the girl who needed to find Sirius Black. He had gotten her into this fucked-up situation and he needed a good telling off.